LAX97FA089 · Beech F33A
Beech F33A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Zamperini Field (TOA) to Palm Springs International Airport (PSP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA089
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech F33A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N31706
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CATo Palm Springs International Airport (PSP), Palm Springs, CA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff, the pilot requested radar flight following service for his flight from Torrance through the Banning Pass to Palm Springs. Clouds were present in the Banning Pass area. At 1435:21, while proceeding at 7,600 feet in an easterly direction, the pilot asked the controller 'we on course through the Banning Pass?' The controller responded at 1435:26 and informed the pilot '. . . you're not through the Banning Pass but the Banning Pass is at eleven o'clock and eight miles.' There were no further communications from the pilot. The airplane continued cruising about 7,600 feet (mode C transponder altitude) on an east-northeasterly course until impacting terrain about 3.5 miles from the western side of Mt San Jacinto (peak elevation: 10,804 feet). Elevation of the crash site was 7,650 feet. A handheld type GPS receiver was found in the wreckage, and it was functionally tested. Extracted data revealed the GPS receiver had been operating during the accident flight. It had accurately recorded the airplane's flight track and indicated the airplane's last location within 1/2 mile of the crash site. The pilot was familiar with the southern California area.
Probable cause
continued VFR flight by the pilot into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), and his failure to maintain proper altitude or clearance from mountainous terrain. Factors relating to the accident were: the high/mountainous terrain, and the adverse weather condition (low ceiling/clouds).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA089
- Event ID
- 20001208X07310
- Case number
- LAX97FA089
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 365188abc95d2100791268db7173dc1b43e4722c1b99f6b8140fefeabc537053; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:03:48.835Z.